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Still Running:Exelon Files with Fed’s Plan to Keep Some Generators Operating

After working through a process with ISO New England over the last two months, Exelon Generation and ISO filed a proposal with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that would keep two Mystic Station generators going after 2022 – for a price.

Exelon, which operates Mystic Station, surprisingly filed in March with FERC to retire the entire power plant – a plant that isn’t that old in comparison to the lifespan of such facilities.

This week, the company said they had been working with ISO since April, when ISO asked them to keep Mystic 8 and 9 open to preserve electric reliability. Exelon said that started a process that resulted in the filing on May 16.

The result, if approved, is that Exelon would get a new $1 or less per month fee from customers in order to defray the costs of keeping the critical electrical facility open.

“If approved by FERC, both the ISO-NE and Exelon Generation fillings will result in Exelon Generation recovering from regional customers the costs of operating the plant and associated liquefied natural gas facility in exchange for an agreement by Exelon Generation to give back to consumers all the capacity and energy revenues that it receives through plant operations over the two-year period,” read a statement from the company. “In addition, customers will receive credits for third-party gas sales during this period. Over the last 15 years, ISO-NE has used a similar process to keep plants in operation to preserve electric reliability on multiple occasions.”

The total costs of operating Mystic 8 and 9 off-set by revenues cannot be calculated at this time, the company said, because energy prices and, in turn, plant revenues will depend upon the weather in June 2022 and beyond. However, even assuming no energy revenues, the cost to operate the facilities is expected to be less than a $1 per month for the average residential customer. The actual amount that the average customer will pay after offsetting energy revenues will be considerably less.